Government Technology

Open Standards Policies Finalized


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January 14, 2004 By

The Romney Administration finalized new open standards for information technology (IT) acquisitions in Massachusetts, saying the acquisition guidelines will help reduce total system cost while enhancing flexibility and performance.

The state's Information Technology Division (ITD), under the Executive Office for Administration and Finance (A&F), released a draft policy late last year. Following a public comment period, this release clarifies the technical distinctions between open standards and open source software.

"Our intent is to ensure fair competition between all possible solutions so that the commonwealth will get the best value for its IT investments," said Administration and Finance Secretary Eric Kriss.

The new policy, available on ITD's Web site is described in three related documents:

  • Enterprise Open Standards Policy

  • Enterprise Information Technology Acquisition Policy

  • Enterprise Technical Reference Model (version 1.0)

    Peter Quinn, the state's Chief Information Officer, indicated the policy is effective immediately. "The tools are now in place to make sure we conduct comprehensive best value evaluations for all our information systems," Quinn said.

    Highlights of the new IT policy:

  • Splits the 2003 draft "Open Standards and Open Source" policy into two related documents: Standards and Acquisition;

  • Sets a strategic imperative that all IT investments be open standards compliant;

  • Requires agencies to consider all possible alternatives - proprietary, open source, and public sector code sharing - in determining best value solutions;

  • Clarifies that the procurement objective of minimizing total cost of ownership over the lifetime of the IT investment must include ease of system migration.

    • You may use or reference this story with attribution and a link to
    http://www.govtech.com/e-government/Open-Standards-Policies-Finalized.html


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